Where the money is SUPPOSED to go. How many of the companies listed are subcontractors to Halliburton? $1.5 million for lap top computers? Did every survivor get one? I mean Dell sells them for a lot less than that !!!
Monday, September 26, 2005
Morning Papers - It's Origins
Rooster "Crowing"
"Okeydoke"
History
1777, British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
1789, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America's first secretary of state.
1888, poet T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis.
1937 Great blues singer Bessie Smith dies in Clarksville, MS after injuries from an automobile accident. Supposedly, she bled to death after being denied a blood transfusion at a whites-only hospital.
1950, United Nations troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans.
1952, philosopher George Santayana died in Rome at age 88.
1955, following word that President Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack, the New York Stock Exchange saw its worst price decline since 1929.
1960, the first televised debate between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon took place in Chicago.
1962 Sonny Liston KO's Floyd Patterson to win the Heavyweight Boxing Championship. He is later KO'd by Cassius Clay who converts to Islam and changes his name to Muhammad Ali
1980, the Cuban government abruptly closed Mariel Harbor, ending the "freedom flotilla" of Cuban refugees that had begun the previous April.
1981 Tennis star Serena “Mica” Williams who will become a noted champion singles and doubles player, is born in Saginaw, MI.
1986, William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.
1991, four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure in Oracle, Ariz., called Biosphere Two. (They emerged from the Biosphere on this date in 1993.)
Missing in Action
1966 BALLARD ARTHUR T. SPARTANBURG SC 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 2000
1966 MOSBURG HENRY L. PUTNAM OK
1966 PHILLIPS MARVIN F. GRUETLI TN
1967 GEIST STEPHEN J. SILVER SPRINGS MD
1967 HUDDLESTON LYNN R. RALLS TX
1967 MOE HAROLD JOHN EAU CLAIRE WI
1968 OLSON BARRY A. ALBERT LEA MN
1972 WALSH JAMES P. WINSTED CN 02/12/73 RELEASED BY PRG (CAMB) 151099 ALIVE IN 99
September 25
1963 CHENEY JOSEPH C. NOT ON OFFICIAL DIA LIST
1966 BURGESS RICHARD G. ALOHA WA 03/05/73 RELEASED BY PRG ALIVE IN 98
1966 BOSSMAN PETER R. WEST SENECA NY
1966 CUSHMAN CLIFTON E. GRAND FORKS ND
1966 DUCAT PHILLIP A. FORT WAYNE IN
1966 REITER DEAN W. MANCHESTER MO
1972 CHAN PETER SAN FRANCISCO CA FELL OVERBOARD/ORISKANY
September 24
1965 FLYNN GEORGE EDWARD III NEW ORLEANS LA 06/09/74 REMAINS RECOVERED
1965 OSBORN GEOFFREY H. WINTER PARK FL
1966 WHITTLE JUNIOR L. INDIANAPOLIS IN SWIMMING SOUTH CHINA SEA DROWN
1968 BREINER STEPHEN E. DECATUR IN
1968 DRABIC PETER E. UNION BRIDGE MD 03/73 RELEASED BY PRG ALIVE IN 98
1968 MC CONNELL JERRY JAMICA NY
1972 BORAH DANIEL V. JR. OLNEY IL "ALIVE IN CHUTE, NO MORE CONTACT" REMAINS IDENTIFIED 18 APRIL 1997 -- DISPUTED
September 23
1968 CALLAHAN DAVID F. JR. WINDSOR VT
1968 OSBORNE DALE H. SALT LAKE CITY UT 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED ALIVE AND WELL 98
Michael Moore Today
My First Time
A message from Cindy Sheehan
The rumors are true this time. I was arrested in front of the White House today. It was my first time ever being arrested.
We proceeded from Lafayette Park to the Guard House at the White House. I, my sister, and other Gold Star Families for Peace members and some Military Families requested to meet with the President again. We again wanted to know: What is the Noble Cause? Our request was, to our immense shock and surprise, denied. They wouldn't even deliver any letters or pictures of our killed loved ones to the White House.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=510
How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?
A TIME inquiry finds that at top positions in some vital government agencies, the Bush Administration is putting connections before experience
By Mark Thompson, Karen Tumulty, Mike Alan / TIME Magazine
In presidential politics, the victor always gets the spoils, and chief among them is the vast warren of offices that make up the federal bureaucracy. Historically, the U.S. public has never paid much attention to the people the President chooses to sit behind those thousands of desks. A benign cronyism is more or less presumed, with old friends and big donors getting comfortable positions and impressive titles, and with few real consequences for the nation.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4275
Nigerian villagers 'beaten by oil rig troops'
IDAMA, Nigeria (AFP) - Nigerian soldiers posted to protect an oil plant owned by the US giant Chevron invaded a nearby village and severely beat some local people during a hunt for stolen weapons, witnesses said.
Three men -- Ababia Youngana, 33, Thompson Walson, 25 and Preye Kigigha, 28 -- showed reporters fresh scars they said they had received on Saturday when soldiers beat them with rifle butts and whipped them with electrical flex.
Youngana's eye was swollen shut. "I can open it now, but I can't see. It's blinded," he said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4271
U.S. Companies Lag in Responsibility, Accountability - Study
By Abid Aslam / OneWorld.net
WASHINGTON, D.C - U.S. companies remain less accountable than European and Asian ones despite recent years' damaging revelations of management chicanery involving finances, labor relations, environmental performance, and consumer protection, a global survey said Friday.
The findings, to be published in the Oct. 3 international editions of Fortune magazine, came on the heels of fresh demands by international pressure groups for legally binding global social and environmental standards to help stop what they termed corporate abuses.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4253
Frist's Political Future Darkens Over Questions on Stock Sales
By Laura Litvan and Otis Bilodeau / Bloomberg
Sept. 26 -- At the start of this year, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was looking at a bright political future. He led his party to an expanded majority in the Senate in November and emerged as a leading Republican hopeful for the 2008 presidential race.
Less than nine months later, that picture appears darker. Frist, 53, now faces inquiries into his stock sales by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission that threaten to undermine him politically and provide Democrats fresh ammunition with which to question their opponents' ethics.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4267
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
By Eric Lipton and ROn Nixon / New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.
The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4259
Staying Behind, to Help a City That Needed Him
By Ralph Blumenthanl / The New York Times
HOUSTON
Abe Doumani, an "essential person" by declaration of Mayor Bill White, mopped the floor of his Shell station yesterday at a busy intersection.
While others had evacuated, joining the chaotic exodus of about 2.5 million people who fled Hurricane Rita, Mr. Doumani knew he was too vital a player to leave.
He dispenses that rarest and most prized of all commodities: gasoline.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4260
Hackberry: Population Zero
By Scott Gold / Los Angeles Times
HACKBERRY, La. — Roger Thibodeaux gunned the engine but lowered his voice.
"What we're doing here is illegal," he said. "But we need to know what's in there. We need to know what the rest of our lives are going to be like."
Thibodeaux, 43, and Mike Daigle, 52 — two grizzled friends who live hard and work hard, one on a drilling rig, the other on a shrimp boat — had driven as close as they could Sunday afternoon to the region where Hurricane Rita cast a wall of water into Louisiana. Like thousands of others, they pleaded and cajoled, but authorities told them they could not go home.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4264
The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Judge OKs $25.5M settlement in WWII case
By CURT ANDERSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MIAMI -- Amid objections from some Holocaust survivors, a federal judge Monday approved a $25.5 million settlement between the U.S. government and Hungarian Jews who lost jewelry, artwork and other treasures when a Nazi "Gold Train" was commandeered by the U.S. Army during World War II.
Despite the objections, Judge Patricia Seitz said the agreement represented a "historic" chance to right a 60-year-old wrong committed by some U.S. troops and never adequately addressed by the federal government.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Gold%20Train
Five die using generator in Texas outage
By APRIL CASTRO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
BEAUMONT, Texas -- Quanishia Haynes gave a friendly honk as she drove past her father's apartment Monday morning, just hours after he returned to southeast Texas after fleeing to escape Hurricane Rita.
Haynes realized something was wrong the instant her 12-year-old sister came out the front door vomiting. She and her boyfriend rushed inside and found the bodies of her father, his girlfriend's sister and three children.
The five were killed by carbon monoxide from a generator they were running indoors after the hurricane knocked out power. The deaths raised Rita's death toll to seven.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Rita%20Apartment%20Deaths
Nagin reopens New Orleans' Algiers section
By JULIA SILVERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW ORLEANS -- With Hurricane Rita gone, the mayor picked up where he left off with his plan to reopen New Orleans, inviting people in one largely unscathed neighborhood to come back Monday and "help us rebuild the city."
A line extended out of a Winn-Dixie supermarket as locals stocked up on ice, milk and other staples in Algiers, the first New Orleans neighborhood officially opened by Mayor Ray Nagin.
At a Texaco station, owner Mohammed Mehmood returned to find damage both from the storm and from looting. His gas pumps were vandalized, his computers did not work and his ceiling was about to collapse.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Rita%20New%20Orleans%20HK2
Eleven priests in Chicago area removed
By MEGAN REICHGOTT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CHICAGO -- Eleven priests suspected of sexual misconduct with minors more than 20 years ago have been barred from clerical work, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago said Monday.
The men cannot present themselves as priests, engage in public ministries or act as an agent of the archdiocese, although they have not been removed from the priesthood, said Chancellor Jimmy Lago.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Priest%20Abuse
Judge won't stop killing of Calif. pigs
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES -- Thousands of wild pigs on Santa Cruz Island can be destroyed, a federal judge ruled Monday, but a businessman pledged to continue his fight to save the animals.
The National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy, which co-own the island, say the pigs must go because they're damaging archaeological sites and threatening native species like the endangered Santa Cruz Island fox.
The pigs are descended from animals that ranchers brought to the island in the 1850s.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Pig%20Killing
Group calls for licensing Afghan opium
By STEVE GUTTERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of The Senlis Council, a leading international drug policy group, adresses journalists in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday Sept, 26, 2005. The group said that Afghanistan could reduce its destabilizing heroin trade by licensing an opium crop to produce medical morphine for export, but the United Nations dismissed the idea as unlikely to work. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan could reduce its destabilizing heroin trade by licensing an opium crop to produce medical morphine for export, a drug policy group said Monday, but the United Nations dismissed the idea as unlikely to work and the government called it premature.
The Senlis Council, a France-based group founded in 2002, released results of a study examining the potential for licensing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan - which produces an estimated 87 percent of the world's supply of both opium and its derivative, heroin.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Afghan%20Opium%20Initiative
Typhoon Damrey slams into southern China
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SHANGHAI, China -- Typhoon Damrey slammed into southern China's resort island of Hainan on Monday, killing at least nine people, collapsing houses and sweeping away rice, rubber and banana crops.
Packing winds of up to 125 mph, Damrey made landfall north of Hainan's Wanning City before dawn, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It was the island's strongest typhoon since 1973, the agency said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=China%20Typhoon
Supreme Court may hear abortion case
By GINA HOLLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a national ban on a type of late-term abortion, a case that could thrust the president's first court picks into an early tie-breaking role on a divisive and emotional issue.
The appeal follows a two-year, cross-country legal fight over the law and highlights the power that Bush's nominees will have. Just a few months ago, there would have been five votes to strike down the law, which bars what critics call partial birth abortion.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1154&slug=Scotus%20Abortion
A look at U.S. military deaths in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
As of Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, at least 1,919 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,494 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The AP count is two above the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EDT Monday.
The British military has reported 96 deaths; Italy, 26; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; El Salvador, Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20US%20Deaths
Jordanian terrorism trial of 17 begins
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AMMAN, Jordan -- Seventeen men pleaded not guilty Monday to planning attacks on U.S. troops in Jordan and neighboring Iraq.
Some of the defendants said at the start of their trial, held in a military court, that they believed jihad, or holy war, was not a crime.
The men - aged between 22 and 36 - are mostly Jordanians of Palestinian origin. They are charged with different counts, including conspiring to commit terrorism and attempting to harm Jordan's relations with a foreign country - a reference to Iraq, where the suspects allegedly planned suicide operations against U.S. forces but did not manage to travel there.
If convicted, they face up to 15 years in jail.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Jordan%20Terrorism
Spain convicts suspected al-Qaida leader
By MAR ROMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Accused cell leader, Imad Yarkas, right, looks on in the National Court in Madrid, Monday, Sept 26, 2005, where he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and 12 years for being a leader of a terrorist organization. Yarkas and 23 other suspects who stood trial were expressionless as the verdicts were read out in the National Court at the conclusion of Europe's biggest trial of al-Qaida suspects. (AP PHOTO/Juanjo Martin,Pool)
MADRID, Spain -- A Syrian-born businessman was sentenced to 27 years in prison Monday after being convicted of leading a terrorist cell and conspiring to commit murder in the Sept. 11 attacks. He was cleared of a more serious charge in Europe's biggest trial of suspected al-Qaida members.
Another man accused of helping one of the hijackers set up a key meeting was acquitted of being an accessory to murder but was convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group. Sixteen other people were convicted of collaborating with or belonging to the terror cell.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Spain%20Sept%2011%20Trial
Al-Jazeera TV condemns Spain conviction
By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CAIRO, Egypt -- The pan-Arab TV channel Al-Jazeera condemned a Spanish court's finding Monday that one of its journalists had collaborated with terrorists, accusing the judges of violating legal principles.
"It was a black day in the history of Spanish justice," Al-Jazeera news editor Ahmed al-Sheik told the channel from Madrid minutes after the court sentenced Tayssir Alouny to seven years' imprisonment for collaboration with a terrorist organization.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Sept%2011%20Trial%20Al%20Jazeera
Iran criticizes threat of U.N. action
By GEORGE JAHN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Iran's Vice President Reza Aghazadeh speaks on Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, during the 49th regular session of the International Atomic Energy Agency general conference in Vienna, Austria. Disputes about Tehran's nuclear aims spilled over Monday into a 139-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with an Iranian vice president deriding the "absurdity" of a threat to refer his country to the U.N. Security Council. (AP Photo/Hans Punz)
VIENNA, Austria -- Iran's vice president on Monday blasted the "absurdity" of moves toward referring his country to the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear activities but stopped short of announcing that Tehran had retaliated by resuming uranium conversion.
U.S. and British representatives at a 139-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency asserted that only Iran - and its disregard for international concerns about its nuclear program - was to blame for a weekend decision that clears the path for hauling Tehran before the Security Council as early as next month.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Nuclear%20Agency
Rwanda genocide convicts serve sentences
By GABRIEL GABIRO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NTEKO, Rwanda -- Some 774 Rwandans convicted by community courts for their role in the 1994 genocide begin excavating stones for road construction as punishment for their role in the killings of more than a half-million people in this small central African nation.
The community service is intended to foster reconciliation after the slaughter of members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and political moderates from the Hutu majority. The killings were orchestrated by the extremist Hutu government then in power.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apafrica_story.asp?category=1105&slug=Rwanda%20Genocide%20Convicts
Robots to face off for $2M Pentagon prize
By ALICIA CHANG
AP SCIENCE WRITER
LOS ANGELES -- Wanted by the Pentagon: A muscular, outdoorsy specimen. Must be intelligent and, above all, self-driven. When 20 hulking robotic vehicles face off next month in a rugged race across the Nevada desert, the winning machine (if any crosses the finish line) will blend the latest technological bling and the most smarts.
The military sponsors the race to speed the development of unmanned vehicles for combat. The project had an inauspicious start: Last year's inaugural contest ended soon after it began when the robots careered off course or abruptly stalled. One even got tangled in barbed wire.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Robot%20Race
Feds cut back habitat for snowy plover
By JEFF BARNARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announced that West Coast beach-front critical habitat for the threatened western snowy plover will be cut back by nearly 40 percent, continuing a Bush administration policy of reducing habitat protections for threatened and endangered species to reduce economic losses.
The bulk of the cutbacks came from beaches in California on Monterey Bay, Morro Bay and the San Diego Bay island city of Coronado, where a report had estimated that protecting nesting areas from development and human contact would cost nearly $200 million over the next 20 years due primarily to limiting recreation.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=WST%20Snowy%20Plover%20Habitat
Invasive mosquito species found in Midwest
By JIM SALTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ST. LOUIS -- A species of mosquito common in the eastern U.S. and capable of carrying the West Nile virus has made its way to the Midwest for the first time, a finding made by a college undergraduate, Washington University officials said Monday.
Stephanie Gallitano, a Washington University junior chemistry major from Chicago, was studying the egg-laying habits of mosquitoes native to Missouri this summer at the Tyson Research Center in Eureka, Mo. She took eggs to a lab and some developed into a type of insect she didn't recognize.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Mosquito%20Concern
The Cheney Observer
In 1 year, Halliburton's stock doubles as troop deaths double
Halliburton Watch
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- Since the beginning of the Iraq war, Halliburton, the Texas energy giant once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has seen its stock price more than triple in value. When the U.S invaded Iraq in March of 2003, Halliburton's stock was selling for $20 per share. The stock price at the close of market activity on Monday was $66.
In the last 12 months, the total number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq almost doubled as Halliburton's stock doubled. Halliburton's stock rose from $33 per share in September 2004 to $66 yesterday while U.S. deaths in Iraq increased from 1,061 to almost 1900.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m16102&l=i&size=1&hd=0
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
By ERIC LIPTON and RON NIXON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.
The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.
More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, government records show, provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse.
Already, questions have been raised about the political connections of two major contractors - the Shaw Group and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton - that have been represented by the lobbyist Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former leader of FEMA.
"When you do something like this, you do increase the vulnerability for fraud, plain waste, abuse and mismanagement," said Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, who said 60 members of his staff were examining Hurricane Katrina contracts. "We are very apprehensive about what we are seeing."
Bills have come in for deals that apparently were clinched with a handshake, with no documentation to back them up, said Mr. Skinner, who declined to provide details.
"Most, if not all, of these people down there were trying to do the right thing," he said. "They were under a lot of pressure and they took a lot of shortcuts that may have resulted in a lot of waste."
Congress appropriated $62.3 billion in emergency financing after Hurricane Katrina struck. So far, a total of $15.8 billion has been allocated from a FEMA-managed disaster relief fund, of which $11.6 billion has been committed through contracts, direct aid to individuals or work performed by government agencies.
An examination of the contracts granted to date and interviews with state and federal officials raised concerns about some of the awards.
Some industry and government officials questioned the costs of the debris-removal contracts, saying the Army Corps of Engineers had allowed a rate that was too high. And Congressional investigators are looking into the $568 million awarded to AshBritt, a Pompano Beach, Fla., company that was a client of the former lobbying firm of Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi.
The investigators are asking how much money AshBritt will collect and, in turn, what it will pay subcontractors performing the work, said a House investigator who did not want her name used because she was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
The contracts also show considerable price disparities: travel trailers costing $15,000 to $23,000, housing inspection services that documents suggest could cost $15 to $81 per home, and ferries and ships being used for temporary housing that cost $13 million to $70 million for six months.
For some smaller companies, the recovery work will be an extraordinary test. For example, Aduddell Roofing and Sheet Metal, an Oklahoma City business run by a former steer wrestler, shares with a partner a $60 million contract to install temporary roofing on houses in Mississippi. Aduddell's single biggest contract before this was for $5 million, company executives said.
Some businesses awarded large contracts have long records of performing similar work, but they also have had some problems. CH2M Hill and the Fluor Corporation, two global engineering companies awarded a total of $250 million in contracts, were previously cited by regulators for safety violations at a weapons plant cleanup.
The Bechtel Corporation, awarded a contract that could be worth $100 million, is under scrutiny for its oversight of the "Big Dig" construction project in Boston. And Kellogg, Brown & Root, which was given $60 million in contracts, was rebuked by federal auditors for unsubstantiated billing from the Iraq reconstruction and criticized for bills like $100-per-bag laundry service. All of the companies have publicly defended their performance.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, complained that FEMA and other federal agencies were delivering too much of the work to giant corporations with political connections, instead of local companies or minority-owned businesses.
"There is just more of the good-old-boy system, taking care of its political allies," Mr. Thompson said. "FEMA and the others have put out these contracts in such a haphazard manner, I don't know how they can come up with anything that is accountable to the taxpayers."
As of last week, the federal government was spending more than $263 million a day on the recovery effort.
"There was a crisis situation and a lot of very quick contracting was done," said Greg Rothwell, the chief procurement officer at the Department of Homeland Security. "We will be looking at every invoice we get to make sure we were not paying extraordinary prices."
While several federal agencies have approved contracts, FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers, by design, have spent the most so far, according to the list of contracts from federal government agencies assembled by The New York Times.
Much of the spending has been in large amounts, but the contracts also include entries like $80,000 from a company called Bama Jama for clothing adorned with the E.P.A. logo and $3,300 for Doc's Laundry and Linen in Baton Rouge.
Rapidly buying the goods and services needed to respond to an emergency is difficult for any government agency.
Federal contracting rules allow agencies to approve deals without standard competitive bidding in "urgent and compelling circumstances."
To provide some safeguards, federal agencies can hold an open competition in advance for products routinely needed in emergencies. Such agreements are known as "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity," or I.D.I.Q. contracts.
The Defense Department relied on that type of contract in assigning Kellogg, Brown & Root to perform more than $45 million in repairs to levees in New Orleans and military facilities in the gulf region.
Records show, however, that FEMA did not use this approach for the blue sheeting used to cover holes in roofs, a standard item in the disaster tool kit. Instead, the agency bought $6.6 million of the material from All American Poly of Piscataway, N.J., on Sept. 13, without full competitive bidding.
Before signing contracts with mobile-home and travel-trailer makers worth in excess of $1 billion, FEMA said it did solicit bids. But the awards were made without the standard open competition required for government contracts.
Mr. Rothwell, of the Homeland Security Department, said FEMA needed to expand its number of I.D.I.Q. agreements so that when disasters struck it could bring in contractors more quickly and at a competitive price.
The two most expensive services the government has signed contracts for so far are manufactured housing and debris removal, which alone have totaled $2 billion, according to contracting records.
The debris contracts have attracted the scrutiny of investigators from the House Homeland Security Committee, in part because of the price agreed to by the Army Corps of Engineers.
AshBritt, which has won the biggest share of those contracts, is being paid about $15 per cubic yard to collect and process debris, federal officials said. It is also being reimbursed for costs if it has to dispose of material in landfills.
But three communities in Mississippi, which found their own contractors rather than accept the terms offered by AshBritt, have negotiated contracts of $10.64 a cubic yard to $18.25 a cubic yard, including collection, processing and disposal.
And other experts have questioned AshBritt's fees. "Let me put it to you this way: If $15 was my best price, I would rebid it," said Mike Carroll, a municipal official in Orlando, Fla., with experience in hurricane cleanup.
AshBritt has cleaned up debris for FEMA and other government agencies after other hurricanes. Besides possessing a huge roster of subcontractors and the logistics expertise to route hundreds of trucks, the company is also politically well connected.
According to Senate filings, AshBritt paid about $40,000 in the first half of 2005 to Barbour Griffith & Rogers, the Washington lobbying firm co-founded by Governor Barbour of Mississippi, who is also a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
AshBritt officials declined to comment on the Hurricane Katrina contracts. Jean Todd, a federal contracting officer who helps oversee the AshBritt deal for the Army Corps of Engineers, said she was determined to ensure that the price was fair.
"We have auditors that will be looking at all of this," Ms. Todd said.
FEMA has led the effort to line up contractors to install tens of thousand of temporary homes. The scale of the job is still unclear - depending on demand, FEMA may downsize its plans - but the agency has been rushing to buy as many travel trailers and mobile homes as it can. It has signed five contracts each worth more than $100 million with major manufacturers. And it has scoured the country, buying up whatever it can find on dealers' lots.
That has turned into a bonanza for businesses like Wagner's RV Center in Suamico, Wis., which sold 69 trailers to FEMA for $1.3 million.
"In a single sale, we cleared out most of our leftover inventory from the 2005 model year," said Leonard Wagner, the owner of the RV center. "That does not happen very often."
For some small businesses, what started off as big contracts have quickly grown into giant ones. Aduddell Roofing, the Oklahoma City business, was first hired with a partner on a $10 million contract. In a matter of weeks, that deal had grown into a $60 million contract.
The project is being run by Timothy Aduddell, the company's president, who until recently was on the professional rodeo circuit, said Ron Carte, the chief executive of Zenex International, the company that owns Aduddell.
"You have to be there to see it," Mr. Carte said of the hurricane work. "As Mr. Aduddell says, 'It's pretty cowboy.' "
Eric Dash and Leslie Eaton contributed reporting from New York for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/national/nationalspecial/26spend.html?pagewanted=print
Appropriate questions
We need to find out what went wrong in Katrina response
By AMY JORGENSEN, Columnist
September 25, 2005
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there has been much finger pointing, especially toward the Bush administration. Some of you may argue this is not the time to point fingers, but if not now, when? Now is the time to determine who was at fault, because if we don't understand what went wrong in New Orleans and what continues to go wrong, the problem will never be fixed.
The first problem clearly was a lack of preparation. We can speculate that the people of New Orleans were left to die in a flooded city because they were black and poor. We can wonder how things would have been different if New Orleans had been a more affluent, more white city. Or we can examine the facts about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency prepared for previous hurricanes. Before Hurricane Charley hit Florida, FEMA took action. According to a Homeland Security press release dated August 2004, "Twenty semi-trailers containing cots and blankets, emergency meals, portable toilets, personal wash kits, sleeping bags, 6-8 person tents, plastic sheeting and roofing, bottled water and mid-range generators are being staged in Georgia for rapid deployment to Florida. FEMA has also deployed large sea containers with building materials for immediate home repairs."
Why were these same precautions not taken for Hurricane Katrina? It's a question that deserves an answer. Another problem is how the aftermath of Katrina is being handled. Last week, several companies received contracts to repair the damage in New Orleans, and President Bush has pledged to spend as much of the nation's money as necessary to accomplish that goal. Considering that the companies receiving those contracts included Halliburton (once run by Vice President Cheney), Bechtel (whose CEO is on Bush's Export Council) and Shaw (whose lobbyist was formerly Bush's campaign manager), we can safely assume those decisions weren't made because of his compassion for the people of New Orleans, especially since none of those companies had to bid on the contracts. They were awarded without any competition. What's worse is that Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act in areas hit by Katrina. The Davis-Bacon Act guarantees that employees fulfilling a federal contract must be paid the prevailing wage of that community. With suspension of the act, companies in charge of the rebuilding efforts can pay their employees lower wages and keep more of the taxpayers' money as profits.
Furthermore, of those three companies, only Shaw is based in Louisiana. The rebuilding efforts could have been handled, or at least bid on, by local companies so that those in and around the devastated areas could benefit financially from the reconstruction. Instead, billions of dollars are going to companies such as Halliburton, which has already demonstrated its efficient spending in Iraq. According to a Pentagon audit released in June, Halliburton has spent more than $1.5 billion in Iraq on expenses that were either "questioned" or "unsupported." We can expect similar results in New Orleans.
When our leaders show such poor judgment, we have to hold them accountable and ask the tough questions. Finger pointing may not do much to help the people of New Orleans, but it can help them, and us, understand why this tragedy happened and how it can be prevented from happening again.
http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/editorials/article/0,1626,ECP_768_4104611,00.html
Lawrence rally attracts 400 anti-war protesters
March simultaneous with Washington event
By Mike Belt (Contact)
Sunday, September 25, 2005
advertisement
President Bush hasn’t heeded their call for two years, but that didn’t stop about 400 people from marching through downtown Lawrence on Saturday while calling for American forces to be brought home from Iraq.
“I think it’s good to speak out,” said Bob Marvin, one of the marchers. “I’m glad people turned out for this.”
The marchers consisted of people of all ages, including a few children. Some families brought their dogs. They carried signs critical of the Bush administration’s war effort, including ones that proclaimed “How Many Should Die For 0 WMD,” and “Quagmire Accomplished.”
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/sep/25/lawrence_rally_attracts_400_antiwar_protesters/?city_local
Efforts Of Advocacy Group Stymied
By SHERRI ACKERMAN sackerman@tampatrib.com
Published: Sep 26, 2005
TAMPA - After 30 years with virtually unfettered access to confidential client records, the Statewide Advocacy Council is finding less cooperation with government agencies overseeing Florida's most vulnerable residents.
The council was created 30 years ago by lawmakers to investigate complaints made against agencies charged with the welfare of abused and abandoned children, and the elderly, disabled and mentally challenged.
In the past two years, some of those agencies have limited the council's ability to get records. Council members say no harm has come to clients as a result.
"Abuse claims are still being investigated," council Chairman Craig Rappel said last week during the group's board meeting in Tampa. "It just takes a lot more work now."
Some members also are upset with the abrupt appointment in July of a new executive director for the council, Sherri McVay.
McVay is a health care lawyer who worked for Gov. Jeb Bush's father and brother, George W.
She replaced William Marvin, who headed the council for 13 years.
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBUDN262EE.html
Gov. Bush wants Polk declared disaster area
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush asked the Small Business Administration to declare Polk County a disaster area so residents forced out of their homes by flooding could qualify for low-interest loans.
More than 300 homes west of Lake Wales have been flooded since July, when Saddlebag Lake overflowed. After pleading for months, residents got help last week when the county began pumping water out of the lake.
Years of above-average rainfall, last year's hurricanes and this summer's showers caused the lake to overflow.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/12733692.htm
Cost of Freedom Guest: Don't Worry! Be Happy! Your Heating Bill's Only Going up 30 to 70 Percent!
When I was a young girl about 13 years of age, my mother taught me a basic lesson in economics. In the early 60's, the news was filled with reports that a beef shortage was going to hike the price of a pound of ground round by 40% a pound. Ground round was a staple of our family's diet, so Mom told me we wouldn't be eating beef for a while until the price came down. Then she explained something I've never forgotten. "The prices are raised way up," she said, "so that, when they fall back again, even though they're higher than they were before, everyone is relieved. It's just a sneaky way to increase prices." We ate tuna fish casserole until, sure enough, a month or so later the "crisis" was over and prices came down, but not to their pre-crisis levels. My mother was a very smart woman
Yesterday during the second hour of the 9-24-05 edition of the Cost of Freedom, Neil Cavuto and his guest said things that that brought back memories of my mother's words.
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/09/25/cost_of_freedom_guest_dont_worry_be_happy_your_heating_bills_only_going_up_30_to_70_percent.php
Cheney's Medical Record
September 24, 2005
Charles Laramie
I have been thinking about this scenerio for awhile and the headline in the Rutland Herald today "Cheney to undergo procedure" has me writing about the possibility.
There has been a little speculation about who will be the Republican candidate for president in 2008 but not a lot. This is what I think could happen. Due to Mr. Cheney's less than steller medical record he decides to resign the Vice-Presidency early in 2006. The Republican Party picks a replacement they think stands a chance of winning in 2008. This would give the new Vice-President the experience and exposure necessary to win. Is this a likely scenerio?
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050924/RTD/50924002
continued …
"Okeydoke"
History
1777, British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
1789, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America's first secretary of state.
1888, poet T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis.
1937 Great blues singer Bessie Smith dies in Clarksville, MS after injuries from an automobile accident. Supposedly, she bled to death after being denied a blood transfusion at a whites-only hospital.
1950, United Nations troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans.
1952, philosopher George Santayana died in Rome at age 88.
1955, following word that President Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack, the New York Stock Exchange saw its worst price decline since 1929.
1960, the first televised debate between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon took place in Chicago.
1962 Sonny Liston KO's Floyd Patterson to win the Heavyweight Boxing Championship. He is later KO'd by Cassius Clay who converts to Islam and changes his name to Muhammad Ali
1980, the Cuban government abruptly closed Mariel Harbor, ending the "freedom flotilla" of Cuban refugees that had begun the previous April.
1981 Tennis star Serena “Mica” Williams who will become a noted champion singles and doubles player, is born in Saginaw, MI.
1986, William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.
1991, four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure in Oracle, Ariz., called Biosphere Two. (They emerged from the Biosphere on this date in 1993.)
Missing in Action
1966 BALLARD ARTHUR T. SPARTANBURG SC 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 2000
1966 MOSBURG HENRY L. PUTNAM OK
1966 PHILLIPS MARVIN F. GRUETLI TN
1967 GEIST STEPHEN J. SILVER SPRINGS MD
1967 HUDDLESTON LYNN R. RALLS TX
1967 MOE HAROLD JOHN EAU CLAIRE WI
1968 OLSON BARRY A. ALBERT LEA MN
1972 WALSH JAMES P. WINSTED CN 02/12/73 RELEASED BY PRG (CAMB) 151099 ALIVE IN 99
September 25
1963 CHENEY JOSEPH C. NOT ON OFFICIAL DIA LIST
1966 BURGESS RICHARD G. ALOHA WA 03/05/73 RELEASED BY PRG ALIVE IN 98
1966 BOSSMAN PETER R. WEST SENECA NY
1966 CUSHMAN CLIFTON E. GRAND FORKS ND
1966 DUCAT PHILLIP A. FORT WAYNE IN
1966 REITER DEAN W. MANCHESTER MO
1972 CHAN PETER SAN FRANCISCO CA FELL OVERBOARD/ORISKANY
September 24
1965 FLYNN GEORGE EDWARD III NEW ORLEANS LA 06/09/74 REMAINS RECOVERED
1965 OSBORN GEOFFREY H. WINTER PARK FL
1966 WHITTLE JUNIOR L. INDIANAPOLIS IN SWIMMING SOUTH CHINA SEA DROWN
1968 BREINER STEPHEN E. DECATUR IN
1968 DRABIC PETER E. UNION BRIDGE MD 03/73 RELEASED BY PRG ALIVE IN 98
1968 MC CONNELL JERRY JAMICA NY
1972 BORAH DANIEL V. JR. OLNEY IL "ALIVE IN CHUTE, NO MORE CONTACT" REMAINS IDENTIFIED 18 APRIL 1997 -- DISPUTED
September 23
1968 CALLAHAN DAVID F. JR. WINDSOR VT
1968 OSBORNE DALE H. SALT LAKE CITY UT 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED ALIVE AND WELL 98
Michael Moore Today
My First Time
A message from Cindy Sheehan
The rumors are true this time. I was arrested in front of the White House today. It was my first time ever being arrested.
We proceeded from Lafayette Park to the Guard House at the White House. I, my sister, and other Gold Star Families for Peace members and some Military Families requested to meet with the President again. We again wanted to know: What is the Noble Cause? Our request was, to our immense shock and surprise, denied. They wouldn't even deliver any letters or pictures of our killed loved ones to the White House.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=510
How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?
A TIME inquiry finds that at top positions in some vital government agencies, the Bush Administration is putting connections before experience
By Mark Thompson, Karen Tumulty, Mike Alan / TIME Magazine
In presidential politics, the victor always gets the spoils, and chief among them is the vast warren of offices that make up the federal bureaucracy. Historically, the U.S. public has never paid much attention to the people the President chooses to sit behind those thousands of desks. A benign cronyism is more or less presumed, with old friends and big donors getting comfortable positions and impressive titles, and with few real consequences for the nation.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4275
Nigerian villagers 'beaten by oil rig troops'
IDAMA, Nigeria (AFP) - Nigerian soldiers posted to protect an oil plant owned by the US giant Chevron invaded a nearby village and severely beat some local people during a hunt for stolen weapons, witnesses said.
Three men -- Ababia Youngana, 33, Thompson Walson, 25 and Preye Kigigha, 28 -- showed reporters fresh scars they said they had received on Saturday when soldiers beat them with rifle butts and whipped them with electrical flex.
Youngana's eye was swollen shut. "I can open it now, but I can't see. It's blinded," he said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4271
U.S. Companies Lag in Responsibility, Accountability - Study
By Abid Aslam / OneWorld.net
WASHINGTON, D.C - U.S. companies remain less accountable than European and Asian ones despite recent years' damaging revelations of management chicanery involving finances, labor relations, environmental performance, and consumer protection, a global survey said Friday.
The findings, to be published in the Oct. 3 international editions of Fortune magazine, came on the heels of fresh demands by international pressure groups for legally binding global social and environmental standards to help stop what they termed corporate abuses.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4253
Frist's Political Future Darkens Over Questions on Stock Sales
By Laura Litvan and Otis Bilodeau / Bloomberg
Sept. 26 -- At the start of this year, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was looking at a bright political future. He led his party to an expanded majority in the Senate in November and emerged as a leading Republican hopeful for the 2008 presidential race.
Less than nine months later, that picture appears darker. Frist, 53, now faces inquiries into his stock sales by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission that threaten to undermine him politically and provide Democrats fresh ammunition with which to question their opponents' ethics.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4267
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
By Eric Lipton and ROn Nixon / New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.
The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4259
Staying Behind, to Help a City That Needed Him
By Ralph Blumenthanl / The New York Times
HOUSTON
Abe Doumani, an "essential person" by declaration of Mayor Bill White, mopped the floor of his Shell station yesterday at a busy intersection.
While others had evacuated, joining the chaotic exodus of about 2.5 million people who fled Hurricane Rita, Mr. Doumani knew he was too vital a player to leave.
He dispenses that rarest and most prized of all commodities: gasoline.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4260
Hackberry: Population Zero
By Scott Gold / Los Angeles Times
HACKBERRY, La. — Roger Thibodeaux gunned the engine but lowered his voice.
"What we're doing here is illegal," he said. "But we need to know what's in there. We need to know what the rest of our lives are going to be like."
Thibodeaux, 43, and Mike Daigle, 52 — two grizzled friends who live hard and work hard, one on a drilling rig, the other on a shrimp boat — had driven as close as they could Sunday afternoon to the region where Hurricane Rita cast a wall of water into Louisiana. Like thousands of others, they pleaded and cajoled, but authorities told them they could not go home.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4264
The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Judge OKs $25.5M settlement in WWII case
By CURT ANDERSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MIAMI -- Amid objections from some Holocaust survivors, a federal judge Monday approved a $25.5 million settlement between the U.S. government and Hungarian Jews who lost jewelry, artwork and other treasures when a Nazi "Gold Train" was commandeered by the U.S. Army during World War II.
Despite the objections, Judge Patricia Seitz said the agreement represented a "historic" chance to right a 60-year-old wrong committed by some U.S. troops and never adequately addressed by the federal government.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Gold%20Train
Five die using generator in Texas outage
By APRIL CASTRO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
BEAUMONT, Texas -- Quanishia Haynes gave a friendly honk as she drove past her father's apartment Monday morning, just hours after he returned to southeast Texas after fleeing to escape Hurricane Rita.
Haynes realized something was wrong the instant her 12-year-old sister came out the front door vomiting. She and her boyfriend rushed inside and found the bodies of her father, his girlfriend's sister and three children.
The five were killed by carbon monoxide from a generator they were running indoors after the hurricane knocked out power. The deaths raised Rita's death toll to seven.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Rita%20Apartment%20Deaths
Nagin reopens New Orleans' Algiers section
By JULIA SILVERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW ORLEANS -- With Hurricane Rita gone, the mayor picked up where he left off with his plan to reopen New Orleans, inviting people in one largely unscathed neighborhood to come back Monday and "help us rebuild the city."
A line extended out of a Winn-Dixie supermarket as locals stocked up on ice, milk and other staples in Algiers, the first New Orleans neighborhood officially opened by Mayor Ray Nagin.
At a Texaco station, owner Mohammed Mehmood returned to find damage both from the storm and from looting. His gas pumps were vandalized, his computers did not work and his ceiling was about to collapse.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Rita%20New%20Orleans%20HK2
Eleven priests in Chicago area removed
By MEGAN REICHGOTT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CHICAGO -- Eleven priests suspected of sexual misconduct with minors more than 20 years ago have been barred from clerical work, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago said Monday.
The men cannot present themselves as priests, engage in public ministries or act as an agent of the archdiocese, although they have not been removed from the priesthood, said Chancellor Jimmy Lago.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Priest%20Abuse
Judge won't stop killing of Calif. pigs
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES -- Thousands of wild pigs on Santa Cruz Island can be destroyed, a federal judge ruled Monday, but a businessman pledged to continue his fight to save the animals.
The National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy, which co-own the island, say the pigs must go because they're damaging archaeological sites and threatening native species like the endangered Santa Cruz Island fox.
The pigs are descended from animals that ranchers brought to the island in the 1850s.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Pig%20Killing
Group calls for licensing Afghan opium
By STEVE GUTTERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of The Senlis Council, a leading international drug policy group, adresses journalists in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday Sept, 26, 2005. The group said that Afghanistan could reduce its destabilizing heroin trade by licensing an opium crop to produce medical morphine for export, but the United Nations dismissed the idea as unlikely to work. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan could reduce its destabilizing heroin trade by licensing an opium crop to produce medical morphine for export, a drug policy group said Monday, but the United Nations dismissed the idea as unlikely to work and the government called it premature.
The Senlis Council, a France-based group founded in 2002, released results of a study examining the potential for licensing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan - which produces an estimated 87 percent of the world's supply of both opium and its derivative, heroin.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Afghan%20Opium%20Initiative
Typhoon Damrey slams into southern China
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SHANGHAI, China -- Typhoon Damrey slammed into southern China's resort island of Hainan on Monday, killing at least nine people, collapsing houses and sweeping away rice, rubber and banana crops.
Packing winds of up to 125 mph, Damrey made landfall north of Hainan's Wanning City before dawn, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It was the island's strongest typhoon since 1973, the agency said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=China%20Typhoon
Supreme Court may hear abortion case
By GINA HOLLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a national ban on a type of late-term abortion, a case that could thrust the president's first court picks into an early tie-breaking role on a divisive and emotional issue.
The appeal follows a two-year, cross-country legal fight over the law and highlights the power that Bush's nominees will have. Just a few months ago, there would have been five votes to strike down the law, which bars what critics call partial birth abortion.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1154&slug=Scotus%20Abortion
A look at U.S. military deaths in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
As of Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, at least 1,919 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,494 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The AP count is two above the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EDT Monday.
The British military has reported 96 deaths; Italy, 26; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; El Salvador, Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20US%20Deaths
Jordanian terrorism trial of 17 begins
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AMMAN, Jordan -- Seventeen men pleaded not guilty Monday to planning attacks on U.S. troops in Jordan and neighboring Iraq.
Some of the defendants said at the start of their trial, held in a military court, that they believed jihad, or holy war, was not a crime.
The men - aged between 22 and 36 - are mostly Jordanians of Palestinian origin. They are charged with different counts, including conspiring to commit terrorism and attempting to harm Jordan's relations with a foreign country - a reference to Iraq, where the suspects allegedly planned suicide operations against U.S. forces but did not manage to travel there.
If convicted, they face up to 15 years in jail.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Jordan%20Terrorism
Spain convicts suspected al-Qaida leader
By MAR ROMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Accused cell leader, Imad Yarkas, right, looks on in the National Court in Madrid, Monday, Sept 26, 2005, where he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and 12 years for being a leader of a terrorist organization. Yarkas and 23 other suspects who stood trial were expressionless as the verdicts were read out in the National Court at the conclusion of Europe's biggest trial of al-Qaida suspects. (AP PHOTO/Juanjo Martin,Pool)
MADRID, Spain -- A Syrian-born businessman was sentenced to 27 years in prison Monday after being convicted of leading a terrorist cell and conspiring to commit murder in the Sept. 11 attacks. He was cleared of a more serious charge in Europe's biggest trial of suspected al-Qaida members.
Another man accused of helping one of the hijackers set up a key meeting was acquitted of being an accessory to murder but was convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group. Sixteen other people were convicted of collaborating with or belonging to the terror cell.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Spain%20Sept%2011%20Trial
Al-Jazeera TV condemns Spain conviction
By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CAIRO, Egypt -- The pan-Arab TV channel Al-Jazeera condemned a Spanish court's finding Monday that one of its journalists had collaborated with terrorists, accusing the judges of violating legal principles.
"It was a black day in the history of Spanish justice," Al-Jazeera news editor Ahmed al-Sheik told the channel from Madrid minutes after the court sentenced Tayssir Alouny to seven years' imprisonment for collaboration with a terrorist organization.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Sept%2011%20Trial%20Al%20Jazeera
Iran criticizes threat of U.N. action
By GEORGE JAHN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Iran's Vice President Reza Aghazadeh speaks on Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, during the 49th regular session of the International Atomic Energy Agency general conference in Vienna, Austria. Disputes about Tehran's nuclear aims spilled over Monday into a 139-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with an Iranian vice president deriding the "absurdity" of a threat to refer his country to the U.N. Security Council. (AP Photo/Hans Punz)
VIENNA, Austria -- Iran's vice president on Monday blasted the "absurdity" of moves toward referring his country to the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear activities but stopped short of announcing that Tehran had retaliated by resuming uranium conversion.
U.S. and British representatives at a 139-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency asserted that only Iran - and its disregard for international concerns about its nuclear program - was to blame for a weekend decision that clears the path for hauling Tehran before the Security Council as early as next month.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Nuclear%20Agency
Rwanda genocide convicts serve sentences
By GABRIEL GABIRO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NTEKO, Rwanda -- Some 774 Rwandans convicted by community courts for their role in the 1994 genocide begin excavating stones for road construction as punishment for their role in the killings of more than a half-million people in this small central African nation.
The community service is intended to foster reconciliation after the slaughter of members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and political moderates from the Hutu majority. The killings were orchestrated by the extremist Hutu government then in power.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apafrica_story.asp?category=1105&slug=Rwanda%20Genocide%20Convicts
Robots to face off for $2M Pentagon prize
By ALICIA CHANG
AP SCIENCE WRITER
LOS ANGELES -- Wanted by the Pentagon: A muscular, outdoorsy specimen. Must be intelligent and, above all, self-driven. When 20 hulking robotic vehicles face off next month in a rugged race across the Nevada desert, the winning machine (if any crosses the finish line) will blend the latest technological bling and the most smarts.
The military sponsors the race to speed the development of unmanned vehicles for combat. The project had an inauspicious start: Last year's inaugural contest ended soon after it began when the robots careered off course or abruptly stalled. One even got tangled in barbed wire.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Robot%20Race
Feds cut back habitat for snowy plover
By JEFF BARNARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announced that West Coast beach-front critical habitat for the threatened western snowy plover will be cut back by nearly 40 percent, continuing a Bush administration policy of reducing habitat protections for threatened and endangered species to reduce economic losses.
The bulk of the cutbacks came from beaches in California on Monterey Bay, Morro Bay and the San Diego Bay island city of Coronado, where a report had estimated that protecting nesting areas from development and human contact would cost nearly $200 million over the next 20 years due primarily to limiting recreation.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=WST%20Snowy%20Plover%20Habitat
Invasive mosquito species found in Midwest
By JIM SALTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ST. LOUIS -- A species of mosquito common in the eastern U.S. and capable of carrying the West Nile virus has made its way to the Midwest for the first time, a finding made by a college undergraduate, Washington University officials said Monday.
Stephanie Gallitano, a Washington University junior chemistry major from Chicago, was studying the egg-laying habits of mosquitoes native to Missouri this summer at the Tyson Research Center in Eureka, Mo. She took eggs to a lab and some developed into a type of insect she didn't recognize.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Mosquito%20Concern
The Cheney Observer
In 1 year, Halliburton's stock doubles as troop deaths double
Halliburton Watch
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- Since the beginning of the Iraq war, Halliburton, the Texas energy giant once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has seen its stock price more than triple in value. When the U.S invaded Iraq in March of 2003, Halliburton's stock was selling for $20 per share. The stock price at the close of market activity on Monday was $66.
In the last 12 months, the total number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq almost doubled as Halliburton's stock doubled. Halliburton's stock rose from $33 per share in September 2004 to $66 yesterday while U.S. deaths in Iraq increased from 1,061 to almost 1900.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m16102&l=i&size=1&hd=0
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
By ERIC LIPTON and RON NIXON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.
The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.
More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, government records show, provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse.
Already, questions have been raised about the political connections of two major contractors - the Shaw Group and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton - that have been represented by the lobbyist Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former leader of FEMA.
"When you do something like this, you do increase the vulnerability for fraud, plain waste, abuse and mismanagement," said Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, who said 60 members of his staff were examining Hurricane Katrina contracts. "We are very apprehensive about what we are seeing."
Bills have come in for deals that apparently were clinched with a handshake, with no documentation to back them up, said Mr. Skinner, who declined to provide details.
"Most, if not all, of these people down there were trying to do the right thing," he said. "They were under a lot of pressure and they took a lot of shortcuts that may have resulted in a lot of waste."
Congress appropriated $62.3 billion in emergency financing after Hurricane Katrina struck. So far, a total of $15.8 billion has been allocated from a FEMA-managed disaster relief fund, of which $11.6 billion has been committed through contracts, direct aid to individuals or work performed by government agencies.
An examination of the contracts granted to date and interviews with state and federal officials raised concerns about some of the awards.
Some industry and government officials questioned the costs of the debris-removal contracts, saying the Army Corps of Engineers had allowed a rate that was too high. And Congressional investigators are looking into the $568 million awarded to AshBritt, a Pompano Beach, Fla., company that was a client of the former lobbying firm of Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi.
The investigators are asking how much money AshBritt will collect and, in turn, what it will pay subcontractors performing the work, said a House investigator who did not want her name used because she was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
The contracts also show considerable price disparities: travel trailers costing $15,000 to $23,000, housing inspection services that documents suggest could cost $15 to $81 per home, and ferries and ships being used for temporary housing that cost $13 million to $70 million for six months.
For some smaller companies, the recovery work will be an extraordinary test. For example, Aduddell Roofing and Sheet Metal, an Oklahoma City business run by a former steer wrestler, shares with a partner a $60 million contract to install temporary roofing on houses in Mississippi. Aduddell's single biggest contract before this was for $5 million, company executives said.
Some businesses awarded large contracts have long records of performing similar work, but they also have had some problems. CH2M Hill and the Fluor Corporation, two global engineering companies awarded a total of $250 million in contracts, were previously cited by regulators for safety violations at a weapons plant cleanup.
The Bechtel Corporation, awarded a contract that could be worth $100 million, is under scrutiny for its oversight of the "Big Dig" construction project in Boston. And Kellogg, Brown & Root, which was given $60 million in contracts, was rebuked by federal auditors for unsubstantiated billing from the Iraq reconstruction and criticized for bills like $100-per-bag laundry service. All of the companies have publicly defended their performance.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, complained that FEMA and other federal agencies were delivering too much of the work to giant corporations with political connections, instead of local companies or minority-owned businesses.
"There is just more of the good-old-boy system, taking care of its political allies," Mr. Thompson said. "FEMA and the others have put out these contracts in such a haphazard manner, I don't know how they can come up with anything that is accountable to the taxpayers."
As of last week, the federal government was spending more than $263 million a day on the recovery effort.
"There was a crisis situation and a lot of very quick contracting was done," said Greg Rothwell, the chief procurement officer at the Department of Homeland Security. "We will be looking at every invoice we get to make sure we were not paying extraordinary prices."
While several federal agencies have approved contracts, FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers, by design, have spent the most so far, according to the list of contracts from federal government agencies assembled by The New York Times.
Much of the spending has been in large amounts, but the contracts also include entries like $80,000 from a company called Bama Jama for clothing adorned with the E.P.A. logo and $3,300 for Doc's Laundry and Linen in Baton Rouge.
Rapidly buying the goods and services needed to respond to an emergency is difficult for any government agency.
Federal contracting rules allow agencies to approve deals without standard competitive bidding in "urgent and compelling circumstances."
To provide some safeguards, federal agencies can hold an open competition in advance for products routinely needed in emergencies. Such agreements are known as "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity," or I.D.I.Q. contracts.
The Defense Department relied on that type of contract in assigning Kellogg, Brown & Root to perform more than $45 million in repairs to levees in New Orleans and military facilities in the gulf region.
Records show, however, that FEMA did not use this approach for the blue sheeting used to cover holes in roofs, a standard item in the disaster tool kit. Instead, the agency bought $6.6 million of the material from All American Poly of Piscataway, N.J., on Sept. 13, without full competitive bidding.
Before signing contracts with mobile-home and travel-trailer makers worth in excess of $1 billion, FEMA said it did solicit bids. But the awards were made without the standard open competition required for government contracts.
Mr. Rothwell, of the Homeland Security Department, said FEMA needed to expand its number of I.D.I.Q. agreements so that when disasters struck it could bring in contractors more quickly and at a competitive price.
The two most expensive services the government has signed contracts for so far are manufactured housing and debris removal, which alone have totaled $2 billion, according to contracting records.
The debris contracts have attracted the scrutiny of investigators from the House Homeland Security Committee, in part because of the price agreed to by the Army Corps of Engineers.
AshBritt, which has won the biggest share of those contracts, is being paid about $15 per cubic yard to collect and process debris, federal officials said. It is also being reimbursed for costs if it has to dispose of material in landfills.
But three communities in Mississippi, which found their own contractors rather than accept the terms offered by AshBritt, have negotiated contracts of $10.64 a cubic yard to $18.25 a cubic yard, including collection, processing and disposal.
And other experts have questioned AshBritt's fees. "Let me put it to you this way: If $15 was my best price, I would rebid it," said Mike Carroll, a municipal official in Orlando, Fla., with experience in hurricane cleanup.
AshBritt has cleaned up debris for FEMA and other government agencies after other hurricanes. Besides possessing a huge roster of subcontractors and the logistics expertise to route hundreds of trucks, the company is also politically well connected.
According to Senate filings, AshBritt paid about $40,000 in the first half of 2005 to Barbour Griffith & Rogers, the Washington lobbying firm co-founded by Governor Barbour of Mississippi, who is also a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
AshBritt officials declined to comment on the Hurricane Katrina contracts. Jean Todd, a federal contracting officer who helps oversee the AshBritt deal for the Army Corps of Engineers, said she was determined to ensure that the price was fair.
"We have auditors that will be looking at all of this," Ms. Todd said.
FEMA has led the effort to line up contractors to install tens of thousand of temporary homes. The scale of the job is still unclear - depending on demand, FEMA may downsize its plans - but the agency has been rushing to buy as many travel trailers and mobile homes as it can. It has signed five contracts each worth more than $100 million with major manufacturers. And it has scoured the country, buying up whatever it can find on dealers' lots.
That has turned into a bonanza for businesses like Wagner's RV Center in Suamico, Wis., which sold 69 trailers to FEMA for $1.3 million.
"In a single sale, we cleared out most of our leftover inventory from the 2005 model year," said Leonard Wagner, the owner of the RV center. "That does not happen very often."
For some small businesses, what started off as big contracts have quickly grown into giant ones. Aduddell Roofing, the Oklahoma City business, was first hired with a partner on a $10 million contract. In a matter of weeks, that deal had grown into a $60 million contract.
The project is being run by Timothy Aduddell, the company's president, who until recently was on the professional rodeo circuit, said Ron Carte, the chief executive of Zenex International, the company that owns Aduddell.
"You have to be there to see it," Mr. Carte said of the hurricane work. "As Mr. Aduddell says, 'It's pretty cowboy.' "
Eric Dash and Leslie Eaton contributed reporting from New York for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/national/nationalspecial/26spend.html?pagewanted=print
Appropriate questions
We need to find out what went wrong in Katrina response
By AMY JORGENSEN, Columnist
September 25, 2005
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there has been much finger pointing, especially toward the Bush administration. Some of you may argue this is not the time to point fingers, but if not now, when? Now is the time to determine who was at fault, because if we don't understand what went wrong in New Orleans and what continues to go wrong, the problem will never be fixed.
The first problem clearly was a lack of preparation. We can speculate that the people of New Orleans were left to die in a flooded city because they were black and poor. We can wonder how things would have been different if New Orleans had been a more affluent, more white city. Or we can examine the facts about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency prepared for previous hurricanes. Before Hurricane Charley hit Florida, FEMA took action. According to a Homeland Security press release dated August 2004, "Twenty semi-trailers containing cots and blankets, emergency meals, portable toilets, personal wash kits, sleeping bags, 6-8 person tents, plastic sheeting and roofing, bottled water and mid-range generators are being staged in Georgia for rapid deployment to Florida. FEMA has also deployed large sea containers with building materials for immediate home repairs."
Why were these same precautions not taken for Hurricane Katrina? It's a question that deserves an answer. Another problem is how the aftermath of Katrina is being handled. Last week, several companies received contracts to repair the damage in New Orleans, and President Bush has pledged to spend as much of the nation's money as necessary to accomplish that goal. Considering that the companies receiving those contracts included Halliburton (once run by Vice President Cheney), Bechtel (whose CEO is on Bush's Export Council) and Shaw (whose lobbyist was formerly Bush's campaign manager), we can safely assume those decisions weren't made because of his compassion for the people of New Orleans, especially since none of those companies had to bid on the contracts. They were awarded without any competition. What's worse is that Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act in areas hit by Katrina. The Davis-Bacon Act guarantees that employees fulfilling a federal contract must be paid the prevailing wage of that community. With suspension of the act, companies in charge of the rebuilding efforts can pay their employees lower wages and keep more of the taxpayers' money as profits.
Furthermore, of those three companies, only Shaw is based in Louisiana. The rebuilding efforts could have been handled, or at least bid on, by local companies so that those in and around the devastated areas could benefit financially from the reconstruction. Instead, billions of dollars are going to companies such as Halliburton, which has already demonstrated its efficient spending in Iraq. According to a Pentagon audit released in June, Halliburton has spent more than $1.5 billion in Iraq on expenses that were either "questioned" or "unsupported." We can expect similar results in New Orleans.
When our leaders show such poor judgment, we have to hold them accountable and ask the tough questions. Finger pointing may not do much to help the people of New Orleans, but it can help them, and us, understand why this tragedy happened and how it can be prevented from happening again.
http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/editorials/article/0,1626,ECP_768_4104611,00.html
Lawrence rally attracts 400 anti-war protesters
March simultaneous with Washington event
By Mike Belt (Contact)
Sunday, September 25, 2005
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President Bush hasn’t heeded their call for two years, but that didn’t stop about 400 people from marching through downtown Lawrence on Saturday while calling for American forces to be brought home from Iraq.
“I think it’s good to speak out,” said Bob Marvin, one of the marchers. “I’m glad people turned out for this.”
The marchers consisted of people of all ages, including a few children. Some families brought their dogs. They carried signs critical of the Bush administration’s war effort, including ones that proclaimed “How Many Should Die For 0 WMD,” and “Quagmire Accomplished.”
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/sep/25/lawrence_rally_attracts_400_antiwar_protesters/?city_local
Efforts Of Advocacy Group Stymied
By SHERRI ACKERMAN sackerman@tampatrib.com
Published: Sep 26, 2005
TAMPA - After 30 years with virtually unfettered access to confidential client records, the Statewide Advocacy Council is finding less cooperation with government agencies overseeing Florida's most vulnerable residents.
The council was created 30 years ago by lawmakers to investigate complaints made against agencies charged with the welfare of abused and abandoned children, and the elderly, disabled and mentally challenged.
In the past two years, some of those agencies have limited the council's ability to get records. Council members say no harm has come to clients as a result.
"Abuse claims are still being investigated," council Chairman Craig Rappel said last week during the group's board meeting in Tampa. "It just takes a lot more work now."
Some members also are upset with the abrupt appointment in July of a new executive director for the council, Sherri McVay.
McVay is a health care lawyer who worked for Gov. Jeb Bush's father and brother, George W.
She replaced William Marvin, who headed the council for 13 years.
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBUDN262EE.html
Gov. Bush wants Polk declared disaster area
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush asked the Small Business Administration to declare Polk County a disaster area so residents forced out of their homes by flooding could qualify for low-interest loans.
More than 300 homes west of Lake Wales have been flooded since July, when Saddlebag Lake overflowed. After pleading for months, residents got help last week when the county began pumping water out of the lake.
Years of above-average rainfall, last year's hurricanes and this summer's showers caused the lake to overflow.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/12733692.htm
Cost of Freedom Guest: Don't Worry! Be Happy! Your Heating Bill's Only Going up 30 to 70 Percent!
When I was a young girl about 13 years of age, my mother taught me a basic lesson in economics. In the early 60's, the news was filled with reports that a beef shortage was going to hike the price of a pound of ground round by 40% a pound. Ground round was a staple of our family's diet, so Mom told me we wouldn't be eating beef for a while until the price came down. Then she explained something I've never forgotten. "The prices are raised way up," she said, "so that, when they fall back again, even though they're higher than they were before, everyone is relieved. It's just a sneaky way to increase prices." We ate tuna fish casserole until, sure enough, a month or so later the "crisis" was over and prices came down, but not to their pre-crisis levels. My mother was a very smart woman
Yesterday during the second hour of the 9-24-05 edition of the Cost of Freedom, Neil Cavuto and his guest said things that that brought back memories of my mother's words.
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/09/25/cost_of_freedom_guest_dont_worry_be_happy_your_heating_bills_only_going_up_30_to_70_percent.php
Cheney's Medical Record
September 24, 2005
Charles Laramie
I have been thinking about this scenerio for awhile and the headline in the Rutland Herald today "Cheney to undergo procedure" has me writing about the possibility.
There has been a little speculation about who will be the Republican candidate for president in 2008 but not a lot. This is what I think could happen. Due to Mr. Cheney's less than steller medical record he decides to resign the Vice-Presidency early in 2006. The Republican Party picks a replacement they think stands a chance of winning in 2008. This would give the new Vice-President the experience and exposure necessary to win. Is this a likely scenerio?
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050924/RTD/50924002
continued …
Morning Papers - continued
The Jerusalem Post
Sharon beats Netanyahu by slim margin in Likud vote
By GIL HOFFMAN
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's opponents in the Likud, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, narrowly failed on Monday to force a November primary at which Sharon's leadership of the party would have been contested.
Special Report: Battle for the Likud >>
The bid for a November contest was rejected by a margin of 104 votes in a bitter tussle that drew 2,789 of the Likud's central committee members – 91.4 percent of the eligible voters – to the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds. The final tally, announced by committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi a little after midnight, was 1,433-1,329 (with 27 presumed spoiled ballots or abstentions).
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127701201895
Analysis: PM wins battle, but war goes on
By GIL HOFFMAN
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ostensibly won a few more months in power when the Likud central committee decided against advancing the party's primary on Monday, but there is no guarantee that his tenure in the Likud or the Prime Minister's Office has actually been extended.
Sharon's political opponents were weakened by the vote, but no one doubts that former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, MK Uzi Landau and the Likud rebels will continue to do everything possible to topple Sharon.
They tried to stop Sharon by forcing Knesset votes on disengagement, the budget, and a national referendum on withdrawing from Gaza. They attempted to harm the prime minister politically with Likud votes on the plan, on Labor joining the coalition and on advancing the primary.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614782375
Sharon muted ahead of Likud vote
By GIL HOFFMAN, TOVAH LAZAROFF, AND YAAKOV KATZ
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's long-awaited speech to the Likud central committee went undelivered Sunday night after a sabotaged fuse box that zapped his microphone prevented him from addressing a packed hall at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds.
For in depth coverage of Likud leadership rivalries - Special Report: Battle for the Likud >>
Mutual recriminations abounded from Sharon's allies and opponents, who blamed each other for the incident.
Read Sharon's undelivered speech.
Sharon started delivering his speech at 8:20 p.m., following fiery addresses by former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and MK Uzi Landau.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614774070
Likud members divide their support
By TOVAH LAZAROFF AND JPOST STAFF
Education Minister Limor Livnat announced on Sunday that she was in favor of early primaries in the Likud, but that her decision was not connected in any way to the recent upheaval in Gaza.
For in depth coverage of Likud leadership rivalries, check out our Special Report: Battle for the Likud.
In an interview to Israel Radio, Livnat stated that she had attempted to facilitate a compromise that would prevent the primaries from being moved up, but her proposals were rejected.
By choosing early primaries, Livnat is pulling support out from under Sharon and lending it instead to rival candidate Binyamin Netanyahu, who is pushing for an early vote hoping to oust Sharon.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614780170
US Jew nabbed for alleged PM threat
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND YAAKOV KATZ
Israel was planning to deport to the US on Monday a haredi Jew from New York who was arrested last week, reportedly on suspicion that he intended to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. His deportation had not been confirmed by press time.
Zalman Hatzkolevitch, 28, was detained by border police in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem near the Shimon Hatzadik Tomb at the behest of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), according to the Interior Ministry and Immigration Police.
The Bratslav hassid was reportedly carrying a Koran and pictures of himself wearing a keffiyeh while traveling in Arab countries.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127701200422
Arab leaders show support for Syria
By ORLY HALPERN
Arab leaders and citizens from across the region are coming to the defense of Syria as it faces increased American pressure and a probing UN inquiry. In the latest efforts, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Cairo for two hours, after which Egypt publicly denounced the idea of Syrian isolation.
"The Egyptian proposal rejects isolating Syria and calls for achieving stability in the region and not opening a new focus of tension that adds to an already complicated situation," Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both US allies, have united to stem US pressure, reported the US Arabic-language radio SAWA last week.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614782399
Deterrence
The Israeli response to the fusillade of Kassam rockets targeting border communities in the northwestern Negev, including Sderot, from the Palestinian Authority-controlled Gaza Strip must be hard-nosed and unremitting.
That's what the security cabinet decided late Saturday night. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the security forces to use "all means" to stop the attacks. Unprecedented use of artillery against the missile launchers has been approved. And on Sunday the IDF fired artillery salvoes into open areas in the Strip to calibrate the big guns and to transmit a clear deterrent message that more terrorist shelling would bring a heavy response.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered the air force to embark on an all-out continuous offensive, "Operation First Rain," against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip, focusing on the cells that fire the Kassam rockets. The cabinet also endorsed Mofaz's plan for buffer zones inside the northern Gaza Strip to distance the rocket launchers from Israeli population centers.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614781837
Arab leaders show support for Syria
By ORLY HALPERN
Arab leaders and citizens from across the region are coming to the defense of Syria as it faces increased American pressure and a probing UN inquiry. In the latest efforts, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Cairo for two hours, after which Egypt publicly denounced the idea of Syrian isolation.
"The Egyptian proposal rejects isolating Syria and calls for achieving stability in the region and not opening a new focus of tension that adds to an already complicated situation," Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both US allies, have united to stem US pressure, reported the US Arabic-language radio SAWA last week.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614782399
'Operation First Rain' continues in Gaza
By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN
The Israel Air Force continued Monday to strike at terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip despite the near cessation of rocket and mortar attacks and a pledge by Hamas to cease Kassam attacks.
"We don't relate to Hamas mutterings and are judging everything according to reality on the ground," said deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim. "We will hit Hamas and other organizations in Gaza and not just once so they understand that the rules of the game have changed."
For in-depth focus on the post-pullout situation in and around Gaza, check out SPECIAL REPORT: GAZA UPHEAVAL
Boim told Army Radio that the continuing IDF strikes were aimed at "searing into their conscience" that Israel was determined to create deterrence.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127701199526
Israeli killed by Hamas laid to rest
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
A 50-year-old Jewish resident of Jerusalem was kidnapped and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists, police said Monday.
The body of Sasson Nuriel of the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev was found Monday morning in the West Bank village of Beitunya, near Ramallah, five days after he was reported missing.
A court gag order which had been in place at the police's request was partially lifted Monday afternoon after a news blackout on the abduction.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127701203801
The Middle East Times
US frees Abu Ghraib prisoners as suicide bomber kills seven
Ammar Karim
AFP
September 26, 2005
FREED: Iraqi detainees stand in line to be processed for release from Abu Ghraib prison in the town of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, on September 26. The US military released more than 500 Iraqis from Abu Ghraib prison at the request of the Iraqi government to mark the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
(REUTERS)
BAGHDAD -- US forces on Monday freed more than 500 prisoners from Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib jail to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as seven people were killed in a suicide car bombing outside Iraq's oil ministry.
"In the spirit of the holy month of Ramadan, the Iraqi government requested a special release board and worked with multinational forces to expedite the release of more than 1,000 security detainees from Abu Ghraib," the US military said.
The first 507 inmates were freed on Monday, with another 500 releases to follow over the next week, ahead of the Muslim fasting month that starts in early October, the military said in a statement.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050926-072041-8472r
India says Iran vote no sellout
Elizabeth Roche
AFP
September 26, 2005
NEW DELHI -- India on Monday denied charges that it bowed to US pressure in supporting a resolution that opens the door to reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for violating international nuclear safeguards.
India's vote in favor of the motion drafted by EU negotiators Britain, Germany and France stirred protests from the government's leftist allies and the opposition who said that New Delhi yielded to Washington.
But foreign secretary Shyam Saran told reporters that the vote on Saturday "was a considered decision" keeping the country's national interests in mind and was in fact supportive of its longtime ally Iran.
"The resolution as passed addressed the main preoccupations that India had, and those were ... that the Iran nuclear issue should not be taken [immediately] to the UN Security Council," he said.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050926-081439-6096r
Last key suspect in failed London bombing in custody
Robert MacPherson and Chris Wright
AFP
September 23, 2005
LONDON -- The last of the key suspects in a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 bombings in London was remanded in custody on Friday, a day after his extradition from Italy.
Hussain Osman, 27, also known as Hamdi Issac, sat impassively before a magistrate at Belmarsh Prison in southeast London as he was read seven charges, including attempted murder, relating to the July 21 incident.
Judge Timothy Workman remanded Osman - who entered no plea - in custody until December 8 when he will appear at the Old Bailey criminal court in Central London with his alleged co-conspirators.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050923-080955-4088r
In Iran's all-women games: a US athlete
Francoise Chaptal
AFP
September 26, 2005
RUNNER: Saira Kureshi, a member of the US Global Sport team, holds Iraq, Iran and US flags during the opening ceremony of the 4th Women Islamic Games in Tehran on September 24.
(REUTERS)
TEHRAN -- Tehran may be a long way from Texas, but American runner Saira Kureshi feels right at home as she prepares to be the first woman to represent the United States in Iran's Islamic Women's Games.
Kureshi, 26, will compete in the 800 and 1,500 meter runs in the fourth all-women games, an event launched in 1993 to allow Iranian women to compete while observing their strict dress code of being covered head to toe.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050926-034815-1202r
Washington Post
Parents Seek to Block Teaching of 'Intelligent Design'
Lawyers Contend It's an Old Argument for God Wrapped in New Cloth
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 26, 2005; 2:36 PM
HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 26 -- Lawyers for a group of parents Monday challenged the teaching of intelligent design as nothing more than an old argument for God wrapped in new cloth, as a new legal front opened in the evolution wars.
An expected month-long trial opened Monday in federal court in Harrisburg, as 11 parents from Dover township seek to block their school board's demand that biology teachers read a four-paragraph statement to students casting doubt on Darwin's theory of evolution.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092600817.html
Boeing and Machinists Reach Tentative Deal
By Allison Linn
Associated Press
Monday, September 26, 2005; Page A07
SEATTLE, Sept. 25 -- Boeing Co. and its machinists union have reached a tentative contract agreement, which, if approved, would end a three-week strike that shut down the company's airplane production.
Mark Blondin, a union district president, confirmed the agreement Sunday and said union members would vote on the deal Thursday.
Machinists Union member Curt Umbaugh holds aloft a strike sign as he stands near a burn barrel on a Boeing picket line Sunday, Sept. 25, 2005, in Seattle. The Boeing Co. has resumed contract talks with the striking Machinists union, a Boeing spokesman said Sunday. Negotiations in the three-week-old strike have been stalled since the Machinists walked off the job in early September. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) (Elaine Thompson - AP)
"I'm just proud of our membership," Blondin said. "They stood solid, unified, and that solidarity is what finally got the company to do the right thing."
Boeing spokesman Charles Bickers said the company believes the agreement is reasonable and reflects compromise on both sides.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092500652.html
Allstate responds to Hurricane Katrina
If you were impacted by Hurricane Katrina, please visit the Catastrophe Information Center for claim information.
Allstate is doing everything it can to help customers with their claims, with the goal of getting them back on their feet as quickly as possible. Allstate's National Catastrophe Team has a total of 2,275 dedicated catastrophe specialists assisting with the overall Hurricane Katrina effort. More will be sent as needed.
There are several Allstate Mobile Response Units already up and running in impacted areas to assist Allstate customers whose homes or vehicles are damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Each MRU is equipped with satellite telephones and wireless technology that allows Allstate’s National Catastrophe Team to take claim information and issue checks for additional living expenses.
Allstate’s claim technology area has mobilized a command center to ensure that technology issues don’t impede Allstate’s National Catastrophe Team from effectively processing and handling claims.
http://www.allstate.com/about/pagerender.asp,3Fpage,3D2005_09_06_katrina_response.htm
The Birmingham Post Herald
Goodbye, Birmingham, and thank you: The Birmingham Post-Herald staff poses for a group picture in their newsroom on Thursday. After 55 years, the Post-Herald has closed its doors.
http://www.postherald.com/
Sun Herald of Southern Mississippi
Many homebuyers, not enough homes
By KAREN NELSON
karennelson2@aol.com
Money is starting to flow into the Coast real estate market in an unprecedented way.
"Insurance companies are dumping a lot of money into people's hands, and people are desperate," said John Jones, with John Jones Realty in Pascagoula. "It's a boom. There's an awful lot of work."
But he said that Realtors are also plowing new ground.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12742471.htm
Turkey Creek residents rescue their own
By TRACY DASH
tadash@sunherald.com
GULFPORT - Residents of Turkey Creek say they live among heroes. Not the comic-book kind like Spider-Man or Superman, but real men who risked their lives to save others.
Although thousands of South Mississippians heeded warnings to evacuate in the days before Hurricane Katrina, many stayed, believing they would be safe from her wrath.
Ercill Idom and her family were among those who remained. After all, she had stayed in her wood-frame home on Idom Street, just off Rippy Road, for other storms and was fine. Her feeling of safety vanished, though, when she saw flood waters buckle her new hardwood floors.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12742484.htm
Turkey Creek residents rescue their own
By TRACY DASH
tadash@sunherald.com
GULFPORT - Residents of Turkey Creek say they live among heroes. Not the comic-book kind like Spider-Man or Superman, but real men who risked their lives to save others.
Although thousands of South Mississippians heeded warnings to evacuate in the days before Hurricane Katrina, many stayed, believing they would be safe from her wrath.
Ercill Idom and her family were among those who remained. After all, she had stayed in her wood-frame home on Idom Street, just off Rippy Road, for other storms and was fine. Her feeling of safety vanished, though, when she saw flood waters buckle her new hardwood floors.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12742484.htm
Federal waste expected on Coast
By SETH BORENSTEIN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Waste and fraud inevitable in rebuilding, experts say
WASHINGTON - As the federal government throws tens of billions of dollars into hurricane relief and reconstruction, the system to make sure taxpayers' money is spent properly is a mess.
The federal purchasing system has been plagued with scandal - its top buyer was arrested Monday. It has too few workers deciding exactly what to buy, and there may not be enough auditors to ensure taxpayers get their money's worth. Even now, rules designed to keep the contracting process fair and honest are being loosened to speed recovery and reconstruction.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12742486.htm
The Advocate
Rita rescuers seek flooded-out residents
By APRIL CASTRO
Associated Press Writer
BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) -- Rescuers used skiffs to take flooded-out residents to safety along the hurricane-stricken Texas-Louisiana coast Monday, and the Army sent out Blackhawk helicopters to find thousands of cattle feared trapped in high water.
Hurricane Rita's death toll climbed to seven when the bodies of five people were discovered in a Beaumont apartment.
The five - a man, a woman and three children - apparently were overcome by carbon monoxide from a generator they were using after the hurricane knocked out the electricity over the weekend, authorities said. The children's aunt discovered the bodies after going to check on the group.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RITA?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-09-26-12-43-18
Nagin reopens New Orleans' Algiers section
By JULIA SILVERMAN
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- With Hurricane Rita gone, the mayor picked up where he left off with his plan to reopen New Orleans, inviting people in one largely unscathed neighborhood to come back Monday and "help us rebuild the city."
A line extended out of a Winn-Dixie supermarket as locals stocked up on ice, milk and other staples in Algiers, the first New Orleans neighborhood officially opened by Mayor Ray Nagin.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RITA_NEW_ORLEANS_HK2?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-09-26-13-37-32
continued …
Sharon beats Netanyahu by slim margin in Likud vote
By GIL HOFFMAN
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's opponents in the Likud, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, narrowly failed on Monday to force a November primary at which Sharon's leadership of the party would have been contested.
Special Report: Battle for the Likud >>
The bid for a November contest was rejected by a margin of 104 votes in a bitter tussle that drew 2,789 of the Likud's central committee members – 91.4 percent of the eligible voters – to the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds. The final tally, announced by committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi a little after midnight, was 1,433-1,329 (with 27 presumed spoiled ballots or abstentions).
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127701201895
Analysis: PM wins battle, but war goes on
By GIL HOFFMAN
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ostensibly won a few more months in power when the Likud central committee decided against advancing the party's primary on Monday, but there is no guarantee that his tenure in the Likud or the Prime Minister's Office has actually been extended.
Sharon's political opponents were weakened by the vote, but no one doubts that former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, MK Uzi Landau and the Likud rebels will continue to do everything possible to topple Sharon.
They tried to stop Sharon by forcing Knesset votes on disengagement, the budget, and a national referendum on withdrawing from Gaza. They attempted to harm the prime minister politically with Likud votes on the plan, on Labor joining the coalition and on advancing the primary.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614782375
Sharon muted ahead of Likud vote
By GIL HOFFMAN, TOVAH LAZAROFF, AND YAAKOV KATZ
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's long-awaited speech to the Likud central committee went undelivered Sunday night after a sabotaged fuse box that zapped his microphone prevented him from addressing a packed hall at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds.
For in depth coverage of Likud leadership rivalries - Special Report: Battle for the Likud >>
Mutual recriminations abounded from Sharon's allies and opponents, who blamed each other for the incident.
Read Sharon's undelivered speech.
Sharon started delivering his speech at 8:20 p.m., following fiery addresses by former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and MK Uzi Landau.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614774070
Likud members divide their support
By TOVAH LAZAROFF AND JPOST STAFF
Education Minister Limor Livnat announced on Sunday that she was in favor of early primaries in the Likud, but that her decision was not connected in any way to the recent upheaval in Gaza.
For in depth coverage of Likud leadership rivalries, check out our Special Report: Battle for the Likud.
In an interview to Israel Radio, Livnat stated that she had attempted to facilitate a compromise that would prevent the primaries from being moved up, but her proposals were rejected.
By choosing early primaries, Livnat is pulling support out from under Sharon and lending it instead to rival candidate Binyamin Netanyahu, who is pushing for an early vote hoping to oust Sharon.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614780170
US Jew nabbed for alleged PM threat
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND YAAKOV KATZ
Israel was planning to deport to the US on Monday a haredi Jew from New York who was arrested last week, reportedly on suspicion that he intended to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. His deportation had not been confirmed by press time.
Zalman Hatzkolevitch, 28, was detained by border police in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem near the Shimon Hatzadik Tomb at the behest of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), according to the Interior Ministry and Immigration Police.
The Bratslav hassid was reportedly carrying a Koran and pictures of himself wearing a keffiyeh while traveling in Arab countries.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127701200422
Arab leaders show support for Syria
By ORLY HALPERN
Arab leaders and citizens from across the region are coming to the defense of Syria as it faces increased American pressure and a probing UN inquiry. In the latest efforts, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Cairo for two hours, after which Egypt publicly denounced the idea of Syrian isolation.
"The Egyptian proposal rejects isolating Syria and calls for achieving stability in the region and not opening a new focus of tension that adds to an already complicated situation," Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both US allies, have united to stem US pressure, reported the US Arabic-language radio SAWA last week.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614782399
Deterrence
The Israeli response to the fusillade of Kassam rockets targeting border communities in the northwestern Negev, including Sderot, from the Palestinian Authority-controlled Gaza Strip must be hard-nosed and unremitting.
That's what the security cabinet decided late Saturday night. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the security forces to use "all means" to stop the attacks. Unprecedented use of artillery against the missile launchers has been approved. And on Sunday the IDF fired artillery salvoes into open areas in the Strip to calibrate the big guns and to transmit a clear deterrent message that more terrorist shelling would bring a heavy response.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered the air force to embark on an all-out continuous offensive, "Operation First Rain," against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip, focusing on the cells that fire the Kassam rockets. The cabinet also endorsed Mofaz's plan for buffer zones inside the northern Gaza Strip to distance the rocket launchers from Israeli population centers.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614781837
Arab leaders show support for Syria
By ORLY HALPERN
Arab leaders and citizens from across the region are coming to the defense of Syria as it faces increased American pressure and a probing UN inquiry. In the latest efforts, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Cairo for two hours, after which Egypt publicly denounced the idea of Syrian isolation.
"The Egyptian proposal rejects isolating Syria and calls for achieving stability in the region and not opening a new focus of tension that adds to an already complicated situation," Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both US allies, have united to stem US pressure, reported the US Arabic-language radio SAWA last week.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127614782399
'Operation First Rain' continues in Gaza
By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN
The Israel Air Force continued Monday to strike at terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip despite the near cessation of rocket and mortar attacks and a pledge by Hamas to cease Kassam attacks.
"We don't relate to Hamas mutterings and are judging everything according to reality on the ground," said deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim. "We will hit Hamas and other organizations in Gaza and not just once so they understand that the rules of the game have changed."
For in-depth focus on the post-pullout situation in and around Gaza, check out SPECIAL REPORT: GAZA UPHEAVAL
Boim told Army Radio that the continuing IDF strikes were aimed at "searing into their conscience" that Israel was determined to create deterrence.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127701199526
Israeli killed by Hamas laid to rest
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
A 50-year-old Jewish resident of Jerusalem was kidnapped and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists, police said Monday.
The body of Sasson Nuriel of the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev was found Monday morning in the West Bank village of Beitunya, near Ramallah, five days after he was reported missing.
A court gag order which had been in place at the police's request was partially lifted Monday afternoon after a news blackout on the abduction.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127701203801
The Middle East Times
US frees Abu Ghraib prisoners as suicide bomber kills seven
Ammar Karim
AFP
September 26, 2005
FREED: Iraqi detainees stand in line to be processed for release from Abu Ghraib prison in the town of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, on September 26. The US military released more than 500 Iraqis from Abu Ghraib prison at the request of the Iraqi government to mark the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
(REUTERS)
BAGHDAD -- US forces on Monday freed more than 500 prisoners from Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib jail to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as seven people were killed in a suicide car bombing outside Iraq's oil ministry.
"In the spirit of the holy month of Ramadan, the Iraqi government requested a special release board and worked with multinational forces to expedite the release of more than 1,000 security detainees from Abu Ghraib," the US military said.
The first 507 inmates were freed on Monday, with another 500 releases to follow over the next week, ahead of the Muslim fasting month that starts in early October, the military said in a statement.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050926-072041-8472r
India says Iran vote no sellout
Elizabeth Roche
AFP
September 26, 2005
NEW DELHI -- India on Monday denied charges that it bowed to US pressure in supporting a resolution that opens the door to reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for violating international nuclear safeguards.
India's vote in favor of the motion drafted by EU negotiators Britain, Germany and France stirred protests from the government's leftist allies and the opposition who said that New Delhi yielded to Washington.
But foreign secretary Shyam Saran told reporters that the vote on Saturday "was a considered decision" keeping the country's national interests in mind and was in fact supportive of its longtime ally Iran.
"The resolution as passed addressed the main preoccupations that India had, and those were ... that the Iran nuclear issue should not be taken [immediately] to the UN Security Council," he said.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050926-081439-6096r
Last key suspect in failed London bombing in custody
Robert MacPherson and Chris Wright
AFP
September 23, 2005
LONDON -- The last of the key suspects in a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 bombings in London was remanded in custody on Friday, a day after his extradition from Italy.
Hussain Osman, 27, also known as Hamdi Issac, sat impassively before a magistrate at Belmarsh Prison in southeast London as he was read seven charges, including attempted murder, relating to the July 21 incident.
Judge Timothy Workman remanded Osman - who entered no plea - in custody until December 8 when he will appear at the Old Bailey criminal court in Central London with his alleged co-conspirators.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050923-080955-4088r
In Iran's all-women games: a US athlete
Francoise Chaptal
AFP
September 26, 2005
RUNNER: Saira Kureshi, a member of the US Global Sport team, holds Iraq, Iran and US flags during the opening ceremony of the 4th Women Islamic Games in Tehran on September 24.
(REUTERS)
TEHRAN -- Tehran may be a long way from Texas, but American runner Saira Kureshi feels right at home as she prepares to be the first woman to represent the United States in Iran's Islamic Women's Games.
Kureshi, 26, will compete in the 800 and 1,500 meter runs in the fourth all-women games, an event launched in 1993 to allow Iranian women to compete while observing their strict dress code of being covered head to toe.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050926-034815-1202r
Washington Post
Parents Seek to Block Teaching of 'Intelligent Design'
Lawyers Contend It's an Old Argument for God Wrapped in New Cloth
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 26, 2005; 2:36 PM
HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 26 -- Lawyers for a group of parents Monday challenged the teaching of intelligent design as nothing more than an old argument for God wrapped in new cloth, as a new legal front opened in the evolution wars.
An expected month-long trial opened Monday in federal court in Harrisburg, as 11 parents from Dover township seek to block their school board's demand that biology teachers read a four-paragraph statement to students casting doubt on Darwin's theory of evolution.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092600817.html
Boeing and Machinists Reach Tentative Deal
By Allison Linn
Associated Press
Monday, September 26, 2005; Page A07
SEATTLE, Sept. 25 -- Boeing Co. and its machinists union have reached a tentative contract agreement, which, if approved, would end a three-week strike that shut down the company's airplane production.
Mark Blondin, a union district president, confirmed the agreement Sunday and said union members would vote on the deal Thursday.
Machinists Union member Curt Umbaugh holds aloft a strike sign as he stands near a burn barrel on a Boeing picket line Sunday, Sept. 25, 2005, in Seattle. The Boeing Co. has resumed contract talks with the striking Machinists union, a Boeing spokesman said Sunday. Negotiations in the three-week-old strike have been stalled since the Machinists walked off the job in early September. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) (Elaine Thompson - AP)
"I'm just proud of our membership," Blondin said. "They stood solid, unified, and that solidarity is what finally got the company to do the right thing."
Boeing spokesman Charles Bickers said the company believes the agreement is reasonable and reflects compromise on both sides.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092500652.html
Allstate responds to Hurricane Katrina
If you were impacted by Hurricane Katrina, please visit the Catastrophe Information Center for claim information.
Allstate is doing everything it can to help customers with their claims, with the goal of getting them back on their feet as quickly as possible. Allstate's National Catastrophe Team has a total of 2,275 dedicated catastrophe specialists assisting with the overall Hurricane Katrina effort. More will be sent as needed.
There are several Allstate Mobile Response Units already up and running in impacted areas to assist Allstate customers whose homes or vehicles are damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Each MRU is equipped with satellite telephones and wireless technology that allows Allstate’s National Catastrophe Team to take claim information and issue checks for additional living expenses.
Allstate’s claim technology area has mobilized a command center to ensure that technology issues don’t impede Allstate’s National Catastrophe Team from effectively processing and handling claims.
http://www.allstate.com/about/pagerender.asp,3Fpage,3D2005_09_06_katrina_response.htm
The Birmingham Post Herald
Goodbye, Birmingham, and thank you: The Birmingham Post-Herald staff poses for a group picture in their newsroom on Thursday. After 55 years, the Post-Herald has closed its doors.
http://www.postherald.com/
Sun Herald of Southern Mississippi
Many homebuyers, not enough homes
By KAREN NELSON
karennelson2@aol.com
Money is starting to flow into the Coast real estate market in an unprecedented way.
"Insurance companies are dumping a lot of money into people's hands, and people are desperate," said John Jones, with John Jones Realty in Pascagoula. "It's a boom. There's an awful lot of work."
But he said that Realtors are also plowing new ground.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12742471.htm
Turkey Creek residents rescue their own
By TRACY DASH
tadash@sunherald.com
GULFPORT - Residents of Turkey Creek say they live among heroes. Not the comic-book kind like Spider-Man or Superman, but real men who risked their lives to save others.
Although thousands of South Mississippians heeded warnings to evacuate in the days before Hurricane Katrina, many stayed, believing they would be safe from her wrath.
Ercill Idom and her family were among those who remained. After all, she had stayed in her wood-frame home on Idom Street, just off Rippy Road, for other storms and was fine. Her feeling of safety vanished, though, when she saw flood waters buckle her new hardwood floors.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12742484.htm
Turkey Creek residents rescue their own
By TRACY DASH
tadash@sunherald.com
GULFPORT - Residents of Turkey Creek say they live among heroes. Not the comic-book kind like Spider-Man or Superman, but real men who risked their lives to save others.
Although thousands of South Mississippians heeded warnings to evacuate in the days before Hurricane Katrina, many stayed, believing they would be safe from her wrath.
Ercill Idom and her family were among those who remained. After all, she had stayed in her wood-frame home on Idom Street, just off Rippy Road, for other storms and was fine. Her feeling of safety vanished, though, when she saw flood waters buckle her new hardwood floors.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12742484.htm
Federal waste expected on Coast
By SETH BORENSTEIN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Waste and fraud inevitable in rebuilding, experts say
WASHINGTON - As the federal government throws tens of billions of dollars into hurricane relief and reconstruction, the system to make sure taxpayers' money is spent properly is a mess.
The federal purchasing system has been plagued with scandal - its top buyer was arrested Monday. It has too few workers deciding exactly what to buy, and there may not be enough auditors to ensure taxpayers get their money's worth. Even now, rules designed to keep the contracting process fair and honest are being loosened to speed recovery and reconstruction.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12742486.htm
The Advocate
Rita rescuers seek flooded-out residents
By APRIL CASTRO
Associated Press Writer
BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) -- Rescuers used skiffs to take flooded-out residents to safety along the hurricane-stricken Texas-Louisiana coast Monday, and the Army sent out Blackhawk helicopters to find thousands of cattle feared trapped in high water.
Hurricane Rita's death toll climbed to seven when the bodies of five people were discovered in a Beaumont apartment.
The five - a man, a woman and three children - apparently were overcome by carbon monoxide from a generator they were using after the hurricane knocked out the electricity over the weekend, authorities said. The children's aunt discovered the bodies after going to check on the group.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RITA?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-09-26-12-43-18
Nagin reopens New Orleans' Algiers section
By JULIA SILVERMAN
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- With Hurricane Rita gone, the mayor picked up where he left off with his plan to reopen New Orleans, inviting people in one largely unscathed neighborhood to come back Monday and "help us rebuild the city."
A line extended out of a Winn-Dixie supermarket as locals stocked up on ice, milk and other staples in Algiers, the first New Orleans neighborhood officially opened by Mayor Ray Nagin.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RITA_NEW_ORLEANS_HK2?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-09-26-13-37-32
continued …
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